AUTHOR=Chen Zheng , Wu Lan-Ping , Peng Tuo-Chao 

TITLE=Prediabetes is associated with a higher serum neurofilament light chain level in adolescents

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Endocrinology

VOLUME=Volume 14 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/endocrinology/articles/10.3389/fendo.2023.1207045

DOI=10.3389/fendo.2023.1207045

ISSN=1664-2392

ABSTRACT=Objective：Serum neurofilament light chain (sNfL) levels are biomarkers of neuroaxonal damage and cognitive impairment, have been reported in several neurological diseases. There was a dearth of studies on the sNfL levels in the adolescents with prediabetes. We aimed to assess whether higher sNfL levels were displayed adolescents with prediabetes in orthopedic elective surgery.
Methods: sNfL levels were measured in 149 adolescents who received orthopedic elective surgery and aged 12 to 18 years from the Children's Hospital of Hunan Province (18 with and 131 without prediabetes). We evaluated the association between prediabetes and sNfL levels after adjustment for sex, age and triglycerides using a multivariable linear regression model.
Results: The prevalence of prediabetes in adolescents was 12.08%. In univariate logistic regression analysis, prediabetes was related with sNfL. In multivariate logistic regression analysis, after adjustment for age, gender, triglyceride, the association between prediabetes with sNfL levels remained significant. Moreover, smoothed curve further visualized the relationship between the two.
Conclusion: Prediabetes is associated with higher sNfL. Further large-scale and prospective studies are needed to verify clinical utility of sNfL as a monitoring biomarker for prediabetes and proceed to evaluate the ability of sNfL to predict the incidence of neuropathy and cognitive dysfunction in adolescents with prediabetes.